Theopedia

Final judgment

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

— 2 Corinthians 5:10 (KJV)

Definition

Final judgment is the day God has appointed on which the risen, exalted Christ will judge every angel and every human who has ever lived, sentencing the wicked to everlasting punishment and receiving the righteous into everlasting life (Matt. 25:31-46; Acts 17:31; Rev. 20:11-15). It follows the general resurrection of the dead (John 5:28-29) and is distinct from the particular judgment each soul undergoes immediately at death (Luke 16:22-23; Heb. 9:27). Every person will give an account of “thoughts, words, and deeds” and receive according to what was done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10).

Confessional Witness

The Apostles’ Creed confesses that Christ “ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”1 The Nicene Creed, fixed at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) and completed at Constantinople (AD 381), confesses the same office in nearly identical words: Christ “ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”2 A future judgment administered by Christ belongs, on this evidence, to the church’s most basic, ecumenical confession, not to a distinctively Reformed or Baptist article of faith.

The Reformed confessions restate the same doctrine at greater length, in a chapter of nearly identical wording across the family. The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession states:

“God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ; to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father; in which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.”3

The Westminster Confession (1646) and the Savoy Declaration (1658) devote their own chapters, each likewise titled “Of the Last Judgment,” to the same doctrine, differing from the 1689’s wording only in punctuation and minor phrasing.45 All three confessions give the same purpose for the day: to manifest God’s mercy “in the eternal salvation of the elect” and his justice “in the eternal damnation of the reprobate,” so that the righteous receive “fulness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards” while the wicked are “punished with everlasting destruction” away from the Lord’s presence.6 God has deliberately withheld the date: “so will he have the day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful.”7

Biblical Basis

Scripture assigns the office of judge to Christ specifically. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), because he is “the Son of man” (John 5:27). Paul, preaching at Athens, tells the philosophers that God “hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,” a claim he grounds in Christ’s resurrection (Acts 17:31). Every person, believer and unbeliever alike, “must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10).

The persons judged include the whole human race without exception (Matt. 25:31-46; Rev. 20:11-15) and the angels who sinned, already held “in chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). Paul’s own summary is comprehensive: God “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:6).

The judgment proceeds on what a person has actually done, not on profession or reputation: God will judge “the secrets of men” (Rom. 2:16), and the Lord “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor. 4:5). Scripture fixes the rule of judgment to the light each person actually had: the Gentile without the written law is judged by the law written on the heart, and the Jew who “sinned in the law shall be judged by the law” (Rom. 2:12-15); the servant “which knew not” his lord’s will “shall be beaten with few stripes” (Luke 12:47-48). This judgment follows, rather than precedes, the general resurrection of the just and the unjust: “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15).

Historical Development

A future judgment administered by Christ belongs to the earliest layers of Christian confession: the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, fixed in its present form at Constantinople (AD 381) after Nicaea (AD 325), both confess that Christ “shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”12 Even within this same patristic consensus, Origen (3rd century) departed from it, teaching that punishment after death serves a remedial rather than a final purpose; Bavinck traces this speculative theory forward through the medieval Scotus Erigena, into various Anabaptist groups after the Reformation, and on to Schleiermacher.8

The Reformed confessions gave the doctrine its fullest post-biblical, propositional statement in the seventeenth century. The Westminster Assembly’s Confession (1646) devoted a chapter to it, followed in nearly identical wording by the Congregationalist Savoy Declaration (1658) and the Particular Baptists’ Second London Confession (1677, reissued 1689).453 Within the Baptist tradition specifically, John Gill’s Body of Doctrinal Divinity (1769) went on to distinguish the “particular” judgment each soul undergoes immediately at death from the “general” judgment of soul and body together after the resurrection, reading the distinction out of Hebrews 9:27.9

Opposing Views

Universalism

Some traditions deny that the final judgment issues in a fixed, twofold outcome. Bavinck distinguishes two forms. Hypothetical universalism holds that hell and eternal punishment depend entirely on the human will, so that the possibility of repentance remains open through the intermediate state, through the final judgment itself, and on into eternity, which Bavinck describes as “a theory of ongoing purgation.”8 Unconditional universalism instead teaches as settled dogma that all rational creatures will finally be saved; Bavinck traces the position to Origen and lists among its later adherents Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, the medieval Scotus Erigena, several Anabaptist groups, and Schleiermacher.8 Universalists appeal to texts describing a comprehensive divine reconciliation, such as Christ as “the propitiation… for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2) and Paul’s statement that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).8

Conditional immortality

A second position, conditional immortality or annihilationism, denies that the wicked suffer everlasting conscious punishment. On this view humanity was created mortal, and immortality is a gift God grants only to the obedient, so that the “eternal destruction” of the wicked (2 Thess. 1:9) names a literal cessation of being rather than unending suffering.8 The position was taught by the Socinians and advocated in the nineteenth century by Edward White; Boettner reports that, on this view, “after the final judgment all impenitent souls will be annihilated.”10

Objections and Responses

Universal texts like 1 Corinthians 15:22 and Ephesians 1:10 show that God intends the salvation of every individual, not merely of the world considered generally. Bavinck answers that Scripture “nowhere teaches that one day all humans and even all devils will be saved.” Its universalistic-sounding language describes the infinite worth of Christ’s work and its benefit to humanity in its organic, corporate form, not its saving application to every individual apart from faith.8

Words like “destruction,” “corruption,” and “death” describe the wicked’s fate, and their ordinary sense is non-existence, not endless suffering. Bavinck answers that Scripture never uses “death” as a synonym for annihilation: the prodigal son is called “dead” while still living (Luke 15:24), and the Ephesians are called “dead” in their sins while very much existing (Eph. 2:1). “Life, in Scripture, is never mere existence, and death is never the same as annihilation”; God does not annihilate the soul at the first death but only separates it from the body, and Scripture gives no ground for reading the second death differently.8

Everlasting conscious punishment is inconsistent with the goodness and love of God. Bavinck answers that this argument secretly sets God’s goodness against his justice: “if eternal punishment is unjust, then that condemns it… If, however, it is consistent with God’s justice, then God’s goodness remains unscathed: if a thing is just, it is also good.”8 Sin, on this account, is not a passing weakness but “lawlessness… rebellion and hostility against God,” committed against an infinitely worthy Majesty, which is why Scripture attaches an unending penalty to it.8

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References

  1. The Apostles’ Creed, quoted in Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 7, “Creeds and Confessions,” 112-116. ↩ ↩2

  2. The Nicene Creed, quoted in A. A. Hodge, chap. 7, 115-116. ↩ ↩2

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 32, “Of the Last Judgment,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  4. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 33, “Of the Last Judgment,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  5. A Declaration of the Faith and Order Owned and Practised in the Congregational Churches (Savoy Declaration) (London, 1658), chap. 32, “Of the Last Judgment,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  6. 2LBCF, chap. 32, para. 2. ↩

  7. 2LBCF, chap. 32, para. 3. ↩

  8. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 25, “The Consummation.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  9. John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity; or, A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by George Keith, 1769), book 7, chap. 9, “Of the Last and General Judgment.” ↩

  10. Loraine Boettner, Immortality (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1956), 91-159. ↩